Summer on the lake. . .

A strange summer thus far. I'm trying to settle into it a bit more, now that my GSIship in Slavic has ended for the spring term. And, so, I'm madly looking for work, because I won't get another paycheck from U of M until the end of September. Rent still has to be paid, food still has to be purchased . . . It's a little scary, really. If I'd gone abroad this summer, I would have been able to get some funding from the university to support the research. But nobody ever wants you to include your expenses in Michigan in your budget, so where the money for rent ($850/month), cable internet/TV/phone ($70/month), car insurance ($40) and inevitable small utility bills, are supposed to come from remains mysterious.

I'm opting instead to stay in town to rest and work on some old papers, since I have some incomplete work leftover from past semesters when I felt pressured into taking on 5-7 classes at a time, knowing that it would be unworkable. But the financial situation isn't really any saner being in town.

Entertainment has to be the free or nearly free kind. And I'm trying to limit my trips back and forth from Ann Arbor, too, since the cost of gas has gotten so bloody high. I've been hanging out a lot with a friend in town, baking quite a bit, and watching lots of streaming internet TV (Bones is my new obsession, thanks to Ms Scrumptious.) Now that the water has warmed up, I'm about ready to start swimming the lake. Umlud was also kind enough to pump up my bike tires, and I'm also ready to take it out for a spin now and see if the rust on the gears is bad enough to need professional work, or if I can ride it as-is, so I can hit the road on the nice easy bike trails around here. And, hoping to generate some produce at the end of the summer and enjoy some flowers and herbs in the meantime, I am finally planting the lovely selection of perennials and herbs I got at the farm stand the other day. Gardening should be a fun diversion in the evenings, if I can find a way to keep the mosquitos at bay.

(A bit later. . .) My muscles are comfortably sore from hours of hard work today. I have effectively planted all the flowers and herbs; now it's just time to find space for the vegetables tomorrow. I opted to move my herb garden to the space right in front of the cottage instead of the plot across the way, since the hose isn't really long enough to comfortably water over there, and I get to enjoy the plants more when they're right outside my windows. Also, after my previous "gardener" debacle, I feel protective of my plants, and I feel irrationally that having them closer to the house will make them more likely to be preserved by the folks who come to work on the lawn.

The more demanding work, more than planting the new plants, was transplanting some of the old ones. I uprooted a sage plant and two hardy tarragon plants (straggly though they may look from being weedwacked by the supposedly more competent gardener) and brought them over to the other side. The hardest part, though, was my work to bring over the mint. I'm planting it all along the border of the path to the cottage, so that it will grow to fill in and mask the ugly black plastic piping along the sod line, as well as the artificial fibers of the fabric beneath the path itself. I'll finish up the job and show photos tomorrow! I plan to move my marjoram and thyme also, so I'll have the raised beds exclusively for veggies.

I'm going to do some internet research to find out if there are any deer- and rabbit-resistant plants I could plant around my herb garden, especially the parsley and cilantro, so I can keep them for my own harvesting. :)

Today turned out to be a beautiful day, with morning meditation after a bit of coffee, hours of gardening, and a successful job interview for a tutoring gig in Ann Arbor. I talked to my Mom on the phone, saw a stunning sunset over the lake, and had a coffee date with Umlud. Tomorrow I have two more job interviews, for another tutoring job and a full-time baker position. And more fun in the garden!